The Therapy Zone

 Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

    Now where does that song come from? The film starring Gary Cooper High Noon, but alas we are not concerned with Westerns here, not even Living In Harmony. No, this is the preceding episode where No.6 get his mind exchanged for another, that of the Colonel played by actor Nigel Stock, which was essentially two parts in one as Stock remarked; "After the brain-switch, I'm still an Army Officer in appearance but mentally the Prisoner. Physically I'm the Colonel; mentally I'm the Prisoner. And as one's mind controls one's actions I am, in fact, portraying Patrick McGoohan with all his characteristics. So, I had to think of myself as Pat all the time, behaving in the way he would be doing Fortunately I've worked with him several times, so I've been able to imitate several of his characteristics, like the way he flicks his fingers and touches his face."

    Well is that so? I don't see too much evidence of McGoohan's characteristics in Nigel Stock when I watch Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling. And I don't see the Prisoner wearing a double breasted blazer, the Colonel didn't stick with the Prisoner's charcoal grey suit for very long did he? I mean the Prisoner would never dress as the Colonel did once he was out and about in London, visiting his ex-colleagues, Sir Charles Portland, for example and when he went to retrieve those slides, despatched from the roll of film he left at the photographic shop a little over a year ago. No, that double breasted blazer has Nigel Stock written all over it, not Patrick McGoohan!

   And then there was the calculating of the numbers of the letters of the alphabet which corresponded with the number of the slides needed to discover the location of Dr. Jacob Seltzman. The Prisoner would never have to make such a calculation as demonstrated by the Colonel, however that might have been for the benefit of the television viewer. But not so those National Health spectacles which the Colonel wore, with the added coloured lenses, which we will put to one side for the moment. The Prisoner didn't need to wear spectacles, and even when he did they were McGoohan's own! So they must have been the Colonels, but then we must surely ask "How did the mind of the Prisoner know?" Ah, but then the question is raised, that seeing as how it is the mind of the Prisoner-No.6 housed in the body of the Colonel, would that mind have needed the Colonels National Health spectacles in order to help him view the slides better? Or was it Nigel Stock who needed the spectacles, it certainly wasn't Patrick McGoohan this time!

   Mind you then there were those two different coloured lenses, clipped onto the lenses of the spectacles, used to read the hidden words KANDERSFELD AUSTRIA on the projection screen. So that might explain it. At any rate the episode of Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is something of a mish mash anyway, and takes quite a bit of figuring out. Nothing is absolutely clear about it, even 40 years on from the first time I watched it. Mind you this episode was rather hurriedly put together.

BCNU